Acknowledging the critical role of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in shaping professional and academic success across various fields, the research delves into the nuanced interplay between gender and academic discipline in shaping the ESP needs of higher education students. The investigation investigates the impact of gender and academic…

The aim of this personal reflection is to revisit the major concepts that have informed my academic research in the area of applied linguistics and second language development, and show how my overall pedagogical approach has evolved, thanks to the contribution of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT). The main focus of this paper is on the…

Globally, there has been increasing adaptation of curricula frameworks in early childhood education, providing overarching principles of practice rather than subject specific templates for teaching and learning. While such a movement is to be commended as supporting a socio-cultural approach in meeting each child's unique social and cultural…

The concepts of identity and translanguaging have been a focus of considerable theorizing and research in recent years, and have clarified important dimensions of how people interact in both monolingual and multilingual settings (Barkhuizen, 2016; Creese and Blackledge, 2015; Darvin and Norton, 2018; Otheguy et al., 2018). In this article we would…

This study investigates the role EFL teachers attribute to their linguistic and cultural repertoire in the professional learning process during induction. The study draws on the understanding that teacher learning occurs at the interplay between teachers' language and cultural background and teachers' experiences within the sociocultural context…

This article explores the language learning experiences of four recently arrived adolescent plurilingual immigrant students who participated in additional structured linguistic support (SLS) in lower secondary education. The SLS was targeted at creating scaffolding for students who were learning both the language of schooling and the…

James P. Lantolf is George and Jane Greer Professor Emeritus of Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics and former director of the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics in the same academic unit at Xi'an Jiaotong…

The purpose of this research is to understand the information seeking and information utilization behaviors of Armenian-English adult bilinguals, while paying particular attention to the contextual and experiential as well as to the affective and motivational aspects involved. At a meta-theoretical level, the study is rooted primarily in the…

This is a qualitative case study that explores conversational interactions during book-reading practices in a Mandarin-speaking Chinese American family between the mother and her two young children. The study employs a sociocultural lens and the concept of translanguaging to describe the characteristics of interactional practices during book…

To write a linguistic autobiography is to explore and reflect on our lived experiences with language. The purpose of this research was to gain insight into students' language experiences through their linguistic autobiographies and to gain a greater understanding of their relationship with and thoughts on language within their social contexts. In…

This book examines the role of interlocutors and their individual differences (IDs) in second language (L2) development from four theoretical lenses: the cognitive-interactionist approach, sociocultural theory, the variationist approach, and complex dynamic systems theory. A theoretical overview to each approach is written by a preeminent scholar…

The social and cultural "turn" in language education of recent years has helped move language teaching and curriculum design away from many of the more rigid dogmas of earlier generations, but the issue of the roles of the learners' first language (L1) in language pedagogy and classroom interaction is far from settled. Some follow a…

This article reports on a study of how L1 was used by Persian speaking Pre-university learners of English in their private speech while interacting as they were engaged in L2 reading. The study was conducted in a real classroom setting in an Iranian school with the objective of better understand the mediating and regulatory role of L1 private…

The role of world languages in the internationalization of college campuses in the United States (U.S.) has become a recurring theme of discussions in academic, government, and private sectors. Topics have ranged from the lack of a common definition of internationalization to a review of college curricula. Klee (2009) and Bettencourt (2011) have…

The Swedish educational policy for upper secondary English, which took effect in 2011 and adopts a globalised perspective on language, is explored with respect to how skills and awareness related to local, national, and international roles of English are represented in policy documents. A discourse analytic approach to language policy is used to…